Jumia Boss in Police Net over Fraud Petition

Guy Futi, managing director, Jade Internet E-Services Nigeria Limited (Jumia Food), has been arrested over allegations of fraudulent diversion/conversion of funds made against him by Castle Logistics Services Limited, a logistics services providing company and a Jumia vendor.

Confirming the arrest, Adewumi Adegoke, member of the anti-fraud unit, said a case of diversion of funds running into millions of naira was lodged against Jumia Food and Guy Futi by Castle Logistics.

His words: “I can confirm that the Managing Director of Jumia Food was arrested and is in our custody. Investigations are ongoing on the allegations levelled against him and the company.”

However, Olukayode Kolawole, spokesperson for the company, told Vanguard that Guy Futi was not arrested, but honoured a Police invitation, after which he left the Police station.

He said: “Jumia Food MD neither misappropriated the company’s funds nor converted them for personal use.

“If this had happened, Jumia would have taken a legal action against him and probably involved the press. I say, unequivocally, that Jumia Food MD was never involved in any fraudulent act.

“If truly this happened, why would Jumia cover up for him? Is an outside source more credible to tell an alleged story of fraud within Jumia than the company management? Again, there’s no basis for hiding an employee’s fraudulent act if truly the employee committed such act.

“Jumia has an outstanding court case against a vendor (3PL) partner, who owes the company and has refused to pay. It is on the basis of the court case filed against the vendor that Jumia Food MD, Guy Futi, was invited by the Police for questioning.

“Guy Futi was never detained by the Police. He was invited for questioning and left the station after the interrogation same day. The Police should provide a physical evidence of him in detention or else the information you were supplied with was completely false and has a malicious intent.

“A visit to the supposed station where he’s alleged to be waiting for bail will add so much credibility to your story.

“Guy Futi had not joined Jumia as an employee at the time the vendor’s debts started accumulating. He’s barely new at Jumia Food. The allegations are completely untrue and appear to be a cheap effort by a third party to distract the public from the main issue and malign Jumia’s image.”

The petition Castle Logistics, in a petition dated December 24, 2018 by one Mrs. Catherine Azubuike, to Nigerian Police, Zone II, Lagos, had alleged false presence, fraudulent conversion and diversion of N214.695 million by Jumia Food.

The petitioner alleged that they entered into a Service Level Agreement in August 2016, wherein they were to provide personnel services and equipment to Jumia Food for delivery of food supply requests made online by its customers, adding that it also involves the collection of monies and consequent remittance of same to Jumia.

It was alleged that on May 2018, Jumia was said to have been able to pay for only August 2016 to March 2018, and fell short of the payment of N214,695,445.49, and upon a thorough investigation into the payment collection system, they found out that Jumia, without Castle’s consent and permission, gave to some of the riders Jumia Food’s personal POS for collection of payments from customers, and effectively those payments were rendered directly into Jumia Food designated accounts, adding that Jumia stole and converted the said sum for own use.

According to the petition, Castle demanded Jumia Food to provide it with complete bank reports of the transactions on those POS machines, but Jumia refused.

It read: “Jumia Food refused, but rather chose to randomly estimate a percentage of the total funds received from those POS machines as funds related to orders handled by Castle. This resulted in huge monthly shortfalls on orders handled by Castle and Jumia Food kept demanding Castle to remit funds for those shortfalls without providing the POS reports.”

Castle also alleged that further findings showed diversion of funds and Jumia deceived them into remitting funds to its bank account with clear intention to permanently deprive them of its use.